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For the people waiting to board a train, or waiting to meet someone arriving on the train, whether it is officially late is immaterial.  They look at their watch or the clock on the station wall, and they know whether the train is late.  I'll bet this is especially true in San Antonio, where the Texas Eagle, which is supposed to arrive at 10:25 p.m., frequently arrives after midnight.  In Texas, which is served by the Eagle, Heartland Flyer, and Sunset Limited, the train(s) is usually late.  Through the first quarter of this year, I recorded the following statistics for the arrivals at Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, and El Paso.  It is not a pretty picture.At Fort Worth the Eagle (Numbers 21 and 22) was late, on average, by 72 and 47 minutes.  Number 21 arrived in San Antonio, on average, 78 minutes late.  And Number 22 was late into Dallas, a mere 32 miles from Fort Worth, by an average of 61 minutes.  It lost an average of 14 minutes between Cow Town and Big "D".  Number 22 was on time at Dallas once since January 1, 2008.  The Heartland Flyer (821) arrived into Fort Worth, on average, 19 minutes late.  It is a relatively short run from Oklahoma City (206 miles), so it does much better than the two long distance trains.The westbound Sunset (Number 1) was late by an average of 27 minutes into San Antonio and an average of 29 minutes into El Paso.  On many mornings Number 1 is a head of schedule at San Antonio, which means a longer station layover for the passengers.  Number 2 was late, on average, by 86 minutes at El Paso and 87 minutes at San Antonio.  The averages, as well as the other statistics that I keep for Amtrak's trains in Texas, have not shown much improvement since I began tracking them about a year ago.  Most Texans don't know about Amtrak, and the few that do, by and large, don't care about it.  The most frequent comment that I hear from the few people who know about Amtrak reflects an impression that Amtrak is seldom on time.  Until Amtrak fixes the late trains problem, it is not going to have a favorable image amongst the traveling public.
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